AUSTIN — Manny Diaz didn't just assume that playbooks should be thicker than cereal boxes, or that his blitz variety should rival George Washington Carver's uses for the peanut, or that he could use confusion as a weapon. He had to see it for himself first.

More than a decade ago, in stints as a graduate assistant at Florida State and North Carolina State, Diaz made a habit of dropping in on the offensive coaches' planning meetings. Some weeks, the men in the room would watch game tape of a simple, straightforward defensive scheme and show concern, but remain calm.

But Diaz noticed that the more unorthodox the defense on the tape looked, the more formations that were employed and the more chaos that was created, the more the men watching panicked. One week, Diaz remembered, an offensive line coach was on the verge of “going into therapy.”

“When you see that firsthand, you say, ‘Gosh, if you ever get a chance to run a defense one day, wouldn't you want to cause those kinds of problems?'” Diaz said.

As he enters his second season as UT's defensive coordinator, it's evident that Diaz is doing exactly that. In 2011, his unit gave opposing offenses fits with a dizzying, constantly evolving array of exotic blitzes, disguised coverages and defensive sleight of hand. The Longhorns used all of that to finish with the best total defense in the Big 12, and the 11th best in the country.

This season, the bulk of that group is back, the overall talent level looks better and the playbook, believe it or not, has expanded. Based on what the UT offense has seen so far in preseason workouts, opponents should expect to see even more looks and more mayhem than the Longhorns showed off a year ago.

“What he does isn't really complex, but he makes it look that way,” offensive lineman Mason Walters said. “He brings blitzes in ways you wouldn't think he could.”

Last October, coaches at Kansas said they identified at least 180 different blitzes on UT's game tape. At the time, Diaz's players laughed and suggested that might have been a conservative estimate.

But even though that number should grow this fall, it's not like UT's defense is built upon multiplicity alone. While giving his players freedom to improvise, he hammers them on the discipline of fundamentals. And with that in place, he can take full advantage of freakishly gifted athletes who all can hit and run.